A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
